The 12 Countries Most Vulnerable to a Financial Crisis

by Business Insider | November 18, 2013 12:00 pm

A new report from Wells Fargo’s Jay Bryson and Mackenzie Miller takes a look at developing economies and their potential exposure to a financial crisis.

Bryson and Miller rank the 28 largest developing economies based on economic indicators that are associated with financial crises: “Foreign exchange (FX) reserves, the real exchange rate, growth in credit, GDP growth, and the current account. That is, countries that have low FX reserves, an appreciated exchange rate, rapid credit and GDP growth, and current account deficits tend to have the highest probabilities for financial crises.”

Bryson and Miller stress that crises are not necessarily inevitable for these countries, but “developments in these economies bear watching in coming years.”

“It appears that the potential economic growth rate in the developing world has downshifted from the very robust rate that was achieved prior to the global financial crisis,” they write.

We took the 12 countries with the highest (most vulnerable) composite score.